Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden (November 11, 1872 – July 17, 1953), known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American actress who achieved her greatest success as the character Peter Pan, first playing the role in the 1905 Broadway production of Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.[1] Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more than one million dollars during her peak.[1][2]

Adams began performing as a child while accompanying her actress mother on tour. At age 16, she made her Broadway debut, and under Charles Frohman's management, she became a popular player alongside leading man John Drew, Jr. in the early 1890s. Beginning in 1897, Adams starred in plays by J. M. Barrie, including The Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows and Peter Pan. These productions made Adams the most popular actress in New York. She also performed in various other plays. Her last Broadway play, in 1916, was Barrie's A Kiss for Cinderella. After a 13-year retirement, she appeared in more Shakespeare plays and then taught acting in Missouri. She finally retired to upstate New York.

Adams (left) and Flora Walsh in "The Wandering Boys" in San Francisco, 1880

Adams was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Asaneth Ann "Annie" (née Adams) and James Henry Kiskadden. Adams' mother was an actress, and her father had jobs working for a bank and in a mine.[3] Little else is known of Adams's father, who died when she was young.[4] James was not a Mormon, and Adams once wrote of her father as having been a "gentile". The surname "Kiskadden" is Scottish.[5] On her mother's side, Adams's great grandfather Platt Banker came from Plattsburgh, New York. He converted to Mormonism, and the family migrated to Missouri with fellow members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[citation needed] There, Julia married Barnabus Adams. The family then migrated to Utah, settling in Salt Lake City, where Maude's mother was born. Adams was also a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Howland. The extent of Adams's connection to the LDS Church is unclear. Adams took long sabbaticals in Catholic rectories, and in 1922 she donated her estates at Lake Ronkonkoma to one of these places, the Sisters of St. Regis, for use as a novitiate and retreat house.[6][7]

Adams first appeared on stage at the age of nine months in her mother's arms. Over her father's objections, Adams began acting as a small child, adopting her mother's maiden name as her stage name. They toured throughout the western U.S. with a theatrical troupe that played in rural areas, mining towns and some cities.[3] At the age of five, Adams starred in a San Francisco theater as "Little Schneider" in Fritz, Our German Cousin and as "Adrienne Renaud" in A Celebrated Case.[2] She debuted in New York at age ten in Esmeralda and then returned to California. Adams later wrote a short essay, "The One I Knew Least", where she described her difficulty in discovering her own personality while playing so many theatrical roles as a child. She briefly returned to Salt Lake City, where she lived with her grandmother and studied at the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute.[3]

Adams returned to New York City at age 16 to appear in The Paymaster. She then became a member of E. H. Sothern's theatre company in Boston, appearing in The Highest Bidder, and then was on Broadway in Lord Chumley in 1888. Charles H. Hoyt then cast her in The Midnight Bell where audiences, if not the critics, took notice of her. In 1889, sensing he had a potential new star on his hands, Hoyt offered her a five-year contract, but Adams declined in favor of a lesser offer from the powerful producer Charles Frohman who, from that point forward, took control of her career. She soon left behind juvenile parts and began to play leading roles for Frohman.[3] In 1890, Frohman asked David Belasco and Henry C. de Mille to specially write the part of Dora Prescott for Adams in their new play Men and Women, which Frohman was producing. The next year, she appeared as Nell in The Lost Paradise.

In 1892, John Drew, Jr. (one of the leading stars of the day) ended his eighteen-year association with Augustin Daly and joined Frohman's company. Frohman paired Adams and Drew in a series of plays beginning with The Masked Ball and ending with Rosemary in 1896. She then spent five years as the leading lady in John Drew's company.[8] There, "her work was praised for its charm, delicacy, and simplicity."[3]The Masked Ball opened on October 8, 1892. Audiences came to see its star, Drew, but left remembering Adams. Most memorable was a scene in which her character feigned tipsiness for which she received a two-minute ovation on opening night. Drew was the star, but it was for Adams that the audience gave twelve curtain calls, and previously tepid critics gave generous reviews. Harpers Weekly wrote: "It is difficult to see just who is going to prevent Miss Adams from becoming the leading exponent of light comedy in America. The New York Times wrote that Adams, "not John Drew, has made the success of The Masked Ball at Palmer's, and is the star of the comedy. Manager Charles Frohman, in attempting to exploit one star, has happened upon another of greater magnitude." The tipsy scene started Adams on her path to being a favorite among New York audiences and led to an eighteen-month run for the play.

Charles Frohman had been pursuing J. M. Barrie (the future author of Peter Pan) to adapt the author's popular book The Little Minister into a play, but Barrie had resisted because he felt there was no actress who could play Lady Babbie. On a trip to New York in 1896, Barrie attended a performance of Rosemary and at once decided that Adams was the actress to play Lady Babbie.[9][10] Frohman worried that the masculine aspects of the book might overshadow Adams's role. With Barrie's consent, several key scenes were changed to favor Lady Babbie.[11] The play opened in 1897 and was a tremendous success, running for 300 performances in New York (289 of which were standing room only) and setting a new all time box office record of $370,000; it made Adams a star.[12][10] It also toured successfully, running for 65 performances in Boston.[3]

Another play by Barrie, Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1906), became the role with which Adams was most closely identified. She was the first actress to play Peter Pan on Broadway. Only days after her casting was announced, Adams had an emergency appendectomy, and it was uncertain whether her health would allow her to assume the role as planned. Peter Pan opened on October 16, 1905 at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. to little success.[13] It soon moved to Broadway, however, where the play had a long run, and Adams appeared in the role on Broadway several times over the following decade.[citation needed] The collar of her 1905 Peter Pan costume, which she had co-designed, was an immediate fashion success and was henceforth known as the "Peter Pan collar".[14]

Joan at Harvard, Schiller's Play reproduced on Gigantic scale. … The experiment of producing Schiller's "Maid of Orleans" beneath starry skies … was carried out … by ... Adams and a company numbering about two thousand persons … at the Harvard Stadium. … A special electric light plant was installed … a great cathedral was erected, background constructed and a realistic forest created. … Miss Adams was accorded an ovation at the end of the performance.[16]

She appeared in another French play with 1911's Chantecler, the story of a rooster who believes his crowing makes the sun rise.[17] She fared only slightly better than in L'Aiglon with the critics, but audiences again embraced her, on one occasion giving her twenty two curtain calls.[17] Adams later cited it as her favorite role, with Peter Pan a close second.

Adams retired after A Kiss for Cinderella in 1916. During the 1920s, she worked with General Electric to develop improved and more powerful stage lighting and with the Eastman Company in developing color photography. It has been suggested that her motivation for her association with these technology companies was because she wished to appear in a color film version of Peter Pan, and this would have required better lighting and techniques for color photography.[18] After 13 years away from the stage, she returned to acting, appearing occasionally in regional productions of Shakespeare plays, including as Portia in The Merchant of Venice in Ohio, in 1931, and as Maria in Twelfth Night in 1934 in Maine.[3]

Often described as shy, Adams was referred to by Ethel Barrymore as the "original 'I want to be alone' woman".[2] She was known at times to supplement the salaries of fellow performers out of her own pay. Once while touring, a theater owner doubled the price of tickets knowing Adams's name meant a sold-out house. Adams made the owner refund the difference before she appeared on the stage that night.[citation needed] Adams was the head of the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri from 1937 to 1943, becoming well known as an inspiring teacher in the arts of acting.[8][19]

After her retirement, Adams was on occasion pursued for roles in film. The closest she came to accepting was in 1938, when producer David O. Selznick persuaded her to do a screen test (with Janet Gaynor, who would later play the female lead) for the role of Miss Fortune in the film The Young in Heart. After negotiations failed, the role was played by Minnie Dupree, who like Adams had been a girlish whimsical type of actress. The twelve-minute screen test was later preserved by the George Eastman House in 2004.[20]

^The 1870 Utah census lists James H. Kiskadden as the head of a household that included his wife Lucina and several younger Adams', perhaps siblings of Lucina. James reported his birthplace as Ohio. The 1880 California census reports James Kisskaden (age 48), Anne Kisskaden (age 29) and Maude Kisskaden (age 7) living in San Francisco. The latter two list their birthplace as Utah.